Within the next 45 years, the nation’s population will decline by at least 10 percent — whereas most countries, including the United States, expect the opposite to happen. Some consider that dynamic to be the driving force behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to take in nearly 1 million refugees this year alone.
Germans have nobody to blame but themselves for this. Just like every other European country (and a fair bit of America too).
Oooooh, it’s bad for the environment to have kids! Ooooooh it’s so selfish to bring children into this world! Oooooh, but I want to pursue my professional career and be able to buy that new, big arse Mercedes (which kinda gives the lie to the environment and the selfish stuff, but I digress). Oooooh, but a woman doesn’t need men or kids (and men don’t need to be tied down by a family when all they really need is a one night hook-up, er love) — doesn’t my Chihuaha/Italian Greyhound look adorable in his new outfit/ check out my new video game shelf cozy?!
And people couldn’t leave it at their own stupid, narcissitic hang-ups: they had to harass anyone who might just still believe in getting married and having kids (and voted in government that helped in that harassment too I might add).
Well, enjoy your freaking declining years suckers! Yeah, I’m bitter: I’ve got a big family; I’m from a big family; my husband is from a big family (the ones who came to the States, the ones in Germany are hopeless); we’re a military family — we’re getting tired of doing that though; why sign up to serve selfish brat ingrates?
It’s strange with this demographic time bomb everybody’s sitting on – not just in Germany, but here it might be more obvious. On the one hand it’s not like it’s some collective decision to have all of these one-kid families (if you have any kids at all), they’re just being “vernünftig” (sensible or reasonable), or at least that’s what they’re telling themselves. On the other hand when you place it against the backdrop of all this never-ending moaning and groaning and despair and doomsday, you can’t help but think that it’s some form of time-delayed collective suicide (Germans don’t really care for Germans, after all). And what you say about selfishness is right on the money. It comes with the affluence – and with a lack of responsibility. Who do they have to be responsible for? People who have never actually had kids don’t necessarily cross this invisible line from childhood (irresponsibility) to adulthood (responsibility). Or parenthood, in this case, but it comes down to the same thing.
It’s a cultural thing. If you’ve been told for generations that 1) you can “have it all” (whatever that was supposed to be, any way it’s a lie); 2) being responsible = not having kids; and finally 3) that it’s “the end of the world as we know it” apres moi, le deluge nihilistic bs, then you are not going to have kids. They all kind of work together.
Once you get rid of all the decent little hobbits in your society (and it isn’t about race, skin color, or whatever) then indeed you’ve got yourself a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy. There are no decent little hobbits left, and the few that are get pretty well “sod off wanker” once they realize they’ve been stabbed in the back. Societal/civilizational collapse ahoy.
The only remedy is to try and grow a new crop of decent little hobbits, and let them do their thing — but that means giving up on some tightly held and greatly supported thoughts. Are people un-narcissist and un-arrogant enough to do that? At this point I’m not giving it good odds.
Case in point: one of my husband’s German relatives gave up her 7 yo. son for adoption because after having him up to that point, she figured that motherhood was “a barrier to her self-actualization” (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean). She always struck me as a completely off her rocker hippie, but her husband supported her in this (wtf?!), and there were those that defended it. That’s some messed up bs right there, so messed up as to be completely unbelievable — that’s an example of the mindset that’s been festering — kinda late in the game to cauterize that wound if you ask me.
She and the husband (and their daughter they had later, once motherhood became self-actualizing again I guess) now live in Sedona. ‘Nuf said there.
Personally, I wouldn’t have let them into the country.
Observing Hermann 
Now who will be sitting at this table in 45 years and what kind of food will be brought in bei the “buckelige Verwandschaft”?
Kabsah, shawarma, and doner kebab?
Germans have nobody to blame but themselves for this. Just like every other European country (and a fair bit of America too).
Oooooh, it’s bad for the environment to have kids! Ooooooh it’s so selfish to bring children into this world! Oooooh, but I want to pursue my professional career and be able to buy that new, big arse Mercedes (which kinda gives the lie to the environment and the selfish stuff, but I digress). Oooooh, but a woman doesn’t need men or kids (and men don’t need to be tied down by a family when all they really need is a one night hook-up, er love) — doesn’t my Chihuaha/Italian Greyhound look adorable in his new outfit/ check out my new video game shelf cozy?!
And people couldn’t leave it at their own stupid, narcissitic hang-ups: they had to harass anyone who might just still believe in getting married and having kids (and voted in government that helped in that harassment too I might add).
Well, enjoy your freaking declining years suckers! Yeah, I’m bitter: I’ve got a big family; I’m from a big family; my husband is from a big family (the ones who came to the States, the ones in Germany are hopeless); we’re a military family — we’re getting tired of doing that though; why sign up to serve selfish brat ingrates?
It’s strange with this demographic time bomb everybody’s sitting on – not just in Germany, but here it might be more obvious. On the one hand it’s not like it’s some collective decision to have all of these one-kid families (if you have any kids at all), they’re just being “vernünftig” (sensible or reasonable), or at least that’s what they’re telling themselves. On the other hand when you place it against the backdrop of all this never-ending moaning and groaning and despair and doomsday, you can’t help but think that it’s some form of time-delayed collective suicide (Germans don’t really care for Germans, after all). And what you say about selfishness is right on the money. It comes with the affluence – and with a lack of responsibility. Who do they have to be responsible for? People who have never actually had kids don’t necessarily cross this invisible line from childhood (irresponsibility) to adulthood (responsibility). Or parenthood, in this case, but it comes down to the same thing.
It’s a cultural thing. If you’ve been told for generations that 1) you can “have it all” (whatever that was supposed to be, any way it’s a lie); 2) being responsible = not having kids; and finally 3) that it’s “the end of the world as we know it” apres moi, le deluge nihilistic bs, then you are not going to have kids. They all kind of work together.
Once you get rid of all the decent little hobbits in your society (and it isn’t about race, skin color, or whatever) then indeed you’ve got yourself a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy. There are no decent little hobbits left, and the few that are get pretty well “sod off wanker” once they realize they’ve been stabbed in the back. Societal/civilizational collapse ahoy.
The only remedy is to try and grow a new crop of decent little hobbits, and let them do their thing — but that means giving up on some tightly held and greatly supported thoughts. Are people un-narcissist and un-arrogant enough to do that? At this point I’m not giving it good odds.
Case in point: one of my husband’s German relatives gave up her 7 yo. son for adoption because after having him up to that point, she figured that motherhood was “a barrier to her self-actualization” (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean). She always struck me as a completely off her rocker hippie, but her husband supported her in this (wtf?!), and there were those that defended it. That’s some messed up bs right there, so messed up as to be completely unbelievable — that’s an example of the mindset that’s been festering — kinda late in the game to cauterize that wound if you ask me.
She and the husband (and their daughter they had later, once motherhood became self-actualizing again I guess) now live in Sedona. ‘Nuf said there.
Personally, I wouldn’t have let them into the country.